Steven says: Transparency is a pragmatic. Or, exactly as Joe suggests that Peirce implies (is there a reference to this Joe?): identifying the author is a logical necessity.
REPLY: Here's some quotes to that effect: CP 2.315 (c. 1902) For an act of assertion supposes that, a proposition being formulated, a person performs an act which renders him liable to the penalties of the social law (or, at any rate, those of the moral law) in case it should not be true, unless he has a definite and sufficient excuse; and an act of assent is an act of the mind by which one endeavors to impress the meanings of the proposition upon his disposition, so that it shall govern his conduct, including thought under conduct, this habit being ready to be broken in case reasons should appear for breaking it. CP 5.30 (1903) Now it is a fairly easy problem to analyze the nature of assertion. To find an easily dissected example, we shall naturally take a case where the assertive element is magnified -- a very formal assertion, such as an affidavit. Here a man goes before a notary or magistrate and takes such action that if what he says is not true, evil consequences will be visited upon him, and this he does with a view to thus causing other men to be affected just as they would be if the proposition sworn to had presented itself to them as a perceptual fact. MS 70 (1905) Declarative sentence: a sentence which, if seriously pronounced, makes an assertion; that is, is intended to serve as evidence of its utterer's belief, to compel (so far as a sentence may) the belief of those to whom it is addressed, and to assume for the utterer whatever responsibility may attach to the particular form of the declaration, at least, his reputation for veracity or accuracy. New Elements, in EP2, pp. 312f MS 517 (1904) As an aid in dissecting the constitution of affirmation [assertion] I shall employ a certain logical magnifying-glass that I have often found efficient in such business. Imagine, then, that I write a proposition on a piece of paper, perhaps a number of times, simply as a calligraphic exercise. It is not likely to prove dangerous amusement. But suppose I afterward carry the paper before a notary public and make affidavit to its contents. This may prove to be a horse of another color. The reason is that the affidavit may be used to determine an assent to the proposition it contains in the minds of judge and jury--an effect that the paper would not have had if I had not sworn to it. For certain penalties here and hereafter are attached to swearing to a false proposition; and consequently the fact that I have sworn to it will be taken as a negative index that it is not false. . . . An affirmation is an act of an utterer of a proposition to an interpreter, and consists, in the first place, in the deliberate exercise, in uttering the proposition, of a force tending to determine a belief in it in the mind of the interpreter. Perhaps that is a sufficient definition of it; but it involves also a voluntary self-subjection to penalties in the event of the interpreter's mind (and still more the general mind of society) subsequently becoming decidedly determined to the belief at once in the falsity of the proposition and in the additional proposition that the utterer believed the proposition to be false at the time he uttered it. Joe Ransdell Joe Ransdell -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.12/265 - Release Date: 2/20/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
